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Focus: Millions more women at work, but they are still not getting the top jobs or equal pay

When the Sex Discrimination Act was introduced 30 years ago, the job market was dominated by men. There were 15.4m men in work and only 9.5m women. The convention for married women with children to stay at home was strong; the position of men as the main breadwinner unchallenged.

Three decades later, there are still 15.4m men in work. But the number of women in work has shot up to 13.2m. The shift from manufacturing to a service-based economy has favoured women, as has a change in attitudes to working mothers.

Britain’s workplaces, as a result, have become more feminised. Excluding the Scandinavian countries, which have always had a higher proportion of women in work, Britain has the highest proportion of women working in Europe.

In many families the woman is sole breadwinner, according to the Equal Opportunities Commission (EOC), which claims that eight out of 10 job vacancies are